Refuge
Come to think of it, we had agreed to take a walk together.
She must have been looking for me after I disappeared without a word.
Iris turned at the sound of my footsteps.
“Ah, Ain…. You startled me…. You weren’t in your room….”
Looking relieved, Iris came toward me.
“It was stifling in the room. I came out a little early.”
“Y-you could have told me…. I was worried….
W-why is the ashtray broken…?”
Of course she would have seen the shards if she went into the room.
I hadn’t prepared an excuse, so I improvised.
“My hand was shaking while I was carrying it.”
“N-no one else noticed…?”
“Except Roxanne.”
“Ah, ah…. Roxy…. Then it’s fine….”
Iris let out a sigh and held out the lantern she was carrying.
In the light I could see grass clinging thickly to the hem of her skirt and her shoes.
“…Were you looking for a long time?”
“N-no…. I just stepped out…. I-it’s late, but shall we walk together…?”
We walked slowly between the trees and flowers lit by the lantern I had taken.
Iris kept her eyes on the ground as she walked in silence, then finally spoke.
“A-Ain…. In your eyes… how did R-Roxy look?”
“She looked pathetic.
I’d almost rather she still had that shitty temper of hers.”
“Y-your wording is a bit much…. B-but I agree to a point….”
“Talk to her a little, will you? She seemed desperate for a conversation.”
“H-huh? Conversation…? You talked with Roxy…?”
Iris stopped walking, looking startled.
“She asked after you. Wanted to know if your leave of absence had anything to do with me.”
“Eh? L-lately whenever I approach her, she’s the one who avoids me….”
“Did you two fight?”
“Th-there’s nothing to fight about…. She just runs the moment our eyes meet….”
Even if it wasn’t on the same level as mine, Roxanne’s relationship with Iris had once been fairly amicable.
She could have asked Iris herself instead of hearing it through me.
“She joined the army.”
“Y-yeah…. Even when Father and Mother tried everything to stop her…. She wouldn’t budge….”
“…She used to strut around saying she’d become a knight.
The war’s already over, so it’s not like she can earn any glory now.”
Iris fell silent and started walking again.
“Maybe she got the shit kicked out of her in the military. She’s a little… off up here.”
I tapped the side of my head with a finger as I said it.
“N-no…. You shouldn’t say things like that….”
“So you don’t know the exact reason either?”
Iris nodded.
The way her head stayed bowed made it clear she was still fretting over Roxanne.
We were just stepping through the rear mountain entrance, an arch woven with white flowers, when she spoke again.
“A-Ain…. About that….”
“No.”
“Y-you didn’t even hear me….”
“You want me to try talking to Roxanne.”
“I-is it that obvious…?”
“You know perfectly well how much I hate that bitch.”
“R-right….”
In the chilled air, only the sound of our footsteps answered each other.
“You’re not pushing as hard as I expected.”
“L-like you said… R-Roxy is the one at fault….”
I had always thought Iris’s highest value was ‘family.’
In my previous lives, her repeated proposals had probably been attempts to make me a member of the family again.
“A-and…. Right now I’m far more worried about you….”
“…….”
That was why Iris’s change felt all the stranger.
…If she had treasured me like this from the beginning, before I ever drove a knife into her chest—
I wouldn’t have been able to put into words the gratitude I would have felt for her.
“Light my cigar for me? I can’t manage it with one arm the way you do.”
“O-okay…. Just a moment….”
The cutter I handed her clipped the end of the cigar between my lips.
Then the heat and a light smaller than the lantern’s passed from her hand to my mouth.
I exhaled smoke and looked around. This was not a place with particularly good memories.
It was the path leading to the mid-slope of the forest where the birds gathered—somewhere Giselle and I had often visited.
Beyond this point the trail grew rough and untended.
“…I saw Giselle today.”
“…What?”
The lantern showed Iris’s face harden for an instant.
I walked over to a tree stump and sat down.
When Iris spoke again, her tone was colder than her expression.
“You went looking for her?”
“Giselle climbed a tree and came up. Opened the closed window with magic.”
“What are you…. Weren’t you two broken up?”
“As you well know, I was the one who got dumped.”
“…Then the ashtray.”
“I threw it. At Giselle. Missed, though.”
Or maybe I never meant to hit her.
Iris stood still, as if thinking something over.
After a moment she came closer, plucked the cigar from my mouth, and brought it to her own lips.
“Eugh….”
A long fit of coughing followed.
Whether from the harsh smoke or not, small tears gathered in Iris’s half-closed eyes.
Even so she kept drawing on the cigar as if it didn’t matter.
Still holding it, she sank down on the seat beside me and spoke.
“Ain… do you still love Giselle?”
“…No.”
My love had been dead for a long time.
“You could have hidden it. Why go out of your way to tell me?”
I pointed at the uneven dirt path in front of us.
“Just… coming here made me think of it. This is a place I used to come with Giselle.”
“You came here with me too.”
“What?”
Iris put the cigar back between my lips.
The half-smoked cigar was still hot.
A faint pink sheen from her lips glistened on it in the lantern light.
“You don’t remember?”
“…Did we?”
“Ha.”
Iris twisted her mouth into a small, incredulous smile.
It was an expression she had never once shown me before.
“You were little, so I suppose you could forget. Still, I can’t help feeling hurt.”
“Sorry. But I really don’t remember.”
“Yet you can’t forget a single thing that happened with Giselle.”
“…You sound angry. Want to explain?”
I was thrown by the sudden accusation in Iris’s voice.
“Well, Giselle was sick, so I only came in her place.”
As she spoke she picked up a small twig beside her and began snapping it into pieces.
“But watching you smile and walking hand in hand with you—that’s a precious memory for me.”
“You’re talking well. If you always spoke like this, how much—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
I had met her yellow eyes, which were staring at me coldly.
A moment later Iris lowered her gaze to the ground and said,
“You know, Ain. I hate that girl Giselle.”
Who besides ‘Ain’ and Giselle’s father could possibly like that personality?
“You don’t have to worry.
Aside from Count Evergreen, there isn’t a single person left in this world who likes Giselle.”
“Is that so? From where I’m standing, I think you’re still on the list.”
“…Are you going to keep saying that?”
“Memories with Giselle aren’t the only kind that matter.
How long are you going to keep failing to forget her and seeing her in everything?”
I spat out the cigar and raked a hand through my hair.
Anger was overtaking the confusion now.
I stood and raised my voice.
The emotions that had been running high ever since I met Giselle finally burst out raw.
“You think I fucking remember her because I want to?
Every day for more than ten years…. Whispering that I loved her, touching her, holding her….
No matter how hard I try to tell myself it was all just shitty memories—
the truth is that before I got dumped, Giselle was my entire life.
I wasted every last one of my hours on that goddamn fucking bitch. That’s a fact.
And yet my body, my head, just drag it up without asking. What the hell am I supposed to do about that?
I told you. I don’t love her anymore. I want to forget too.
I want to forget the sight of that ring rising out of the dark and hitting the floor.
But she comes looking for me. Giselle does. The one who threw me away.
That’s why I thought of her—so what exactly is the problem? God damn it, is that my fault?”
“You forgot the time you spent with me, and I’ve known you far longer than ten years.”
“It was just one day! There are plenty of memories we made today in that room—”
“I can’t forget. Whether it was just one day or two.
Not a single day in the roughly twenty years since the day you were born.”
Still seated, Iris looked up at me as she answered.
Unlike my fury, her voice remained perfectly calm.
“…What kind of answer are you looking for. Why are you doing this.”
“Why do you remember your memories with Giselle more than the ones with the family right beside you?”
Because I was Ain.
Because I was Ain, who had been set up to love Giselle.
Would Iris accept it if I said that?
“I don’t want that either, Iris.”
“Plenty of couples cleanly forget each other no matter how long they were together.
Why can’t you?”
“Enough. My head already feels like it’s about to split.
I keep telling you this has nothing to do with my will.”
But Iris’s mouth did not close.
“I hated Giselle, but I liked the Ain who loved Giselle.”
“Iris, don’t bring Giselle up again. I’m warning you.”
“Because when you loved her, you shone.
Watching that version of you, I was secretly jealous.”
“One more word and—”
Before I finished, Iris rose from her seat and shoved her face close to mine.
“Why did you only give that love to someone who doesn’t even share your blood?
Nothing is more important than family.
Why did you give it only to Giselle, and not to the family who stayed by your side for so much longer?”
Iris’s unwavering yellow eyes filled my vision.
…How had I never noticed.
That these were not simply the eyes of someone looking at family, at a younger brother.
“…Do you even know what you’re saying right now?”
“I don’t want you to die, Ain.
I don’t want to send you back to that house worse than a ruin.”
“Stop it, Iris.”
“So I’ll give you love.
I promise I’ll love you far more than Giselle ever did.”
“Stop.”
“Ain, I’ll ask again. Do you still love Giselle?”
“How many more times do I have to answer. No.”
Iris’s forehead pressed against mine once more.
The feverish heat of it began to cool against my skin.
“Do you have room left to love someone else?”
“…….”
“Won’t you keep living with me?”
Iris’s breath touched my face.
“…What about the family? The family you value so much.”
Her hand was gently circling my waist.
“It doesn’t matter. We can just say they summoned me for odd jobs.
Even promising Roxy ended up… like that.
If I push hard enough, Father probably won’t be able to say much.”
Why now.
Not when I needed help more than ever—
but only now, when I was already torn to pieces and incapable of loving anyone, did she make this offer.
What had my two deaths done to Iris.
Had she always looked at me with these eyes.
Had I simply never known.
Was it possible she had mistaken a sense of responsibility toward me for love.
Had the fear of my dying driven her into this sudden confession.
Naturally, I thought of Mace.
The most painful heartbreak and catastrophe I had ever endured.
“I can’t love anyone anymore.”
“It’s fine. I’ve been unrequited for a long time. I’m good at it.”
“You can’t even imagine how badly I’ll fall apart.”
“That’s what family is for. I will never resent you.”
I am a horribly cowardly man.
Because a desire had already taken root in me—to run toward someone I could never love.
Because I had once again been shaken by Iris’s persuasion as she promised devotion.
Not because I loved her the way I had loved Mace, but because I could break her and still be allowed to.
Because I could dodge my responsibility.
Because for a while it felt as though I might live as if dreaming, free of nightmares.
Because it felt as though I could escape the tangle of thoughts.
Instead of answering, I took hold of the hand Iris had laid on me.
Smiling, still forehead to forehead, Iris whispered,
“…The fever seems to have gone down completely. Tomorrow let’s go out somewhere together.”